Rockin' 'round the round

2003-02-05 04:00:00 PDT Pebble Beach -- This might be an important breakthrough in the field of rock-music criticism: When evaluating a person's body of work, I now give heavy weight to how he treats me here at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

These two, incidentally, are carved on my musical Mt. Rushmore. Frey and his Eagles, and Huey and his News, are rock legends still cranking out stacks of wailin' wax, mounds of profound sound.

They're not trying to focus their golf, not overtly. Lewis is a Pebble Pro- Am veteran who was mentored here by the late Jack Lemmon, the patron saint of pathetic hackers.

"Lemmon was our hero," Lewis says. "He knew he couldn't play."

It's all about perspective, Frey said.

"When someone says, 'That wasn't a very good shot, Mr. Frey,' I say, 'I'm two-and-oh in colon surgeries, so I don't give a (fig) if I left it in the bunker.' "

"It" being Frey's golf ball, I assume, not his colon. I didn't ask, although I admire the bonhomie of a homie who, five minutes after you meet him,

is telling you about his colon.

Frey and Lewis both realize they're here on a cosmic golden pass according them a freebie red-carpet week in golf paradise, pampered as only the golf world can pamper, backslapped by fellow entertainment superstars and applauded for every shot that does not seriously injure a spectator or woodland creature.

Lewis is a fixture at this event now, even though when he first saw the old Crosby on TV and watched the celeb hackers, he warned himself, "Don't ever do that." But Clint Eastwood is a tough guy to turn down, and invitees are treated well.

"That's where I stayed last year," Lewis says, pointing at a massive fairway-side estate. "I had the guest room over the garage."

Lewis and Frey both took up golf after age 30. Had they started golfing as teenagers, "Hip To Be Square" and "Hotel California" would be waiting to be written.

Both are still working rockers. Lewis and his News will tour Europe soon in support of their latest album, "Plan B." Frey and the Eagles are hard at work on an album, their first new material in about 20 years, due out next year.

Writing is the hard part of the rock biz, they both say. Cranking out brilliant new stuff year after year is daunting.